None of this makes any sense. This is the kind of thing you see in a horror film. A group of strangers thrown together in an isolated place, forced to band together for certain challenges, but their bickering and in-fighting spilling over the more tired and hungry and scared they become. It’s a classic set-up. But that’s fiction. Fantasy.
This is supposed to be real life.
She’d just about bought the holographic projections and the trackers linking to their individual biometrics – but, if this latest holographic image is to be believed, two of them are dead, and the organisers don’t seem to be the slightest bit concerned.
Scott is pacing up and down along the length of the dinner table, muttering to himself, occasionally taking a swipe at one of the platters, sending fancy canapés skittering across the floor.
James is comforting Tiggy.
Amelia still hasn’t moved.
‘Hey.’ Lucy walks over to Harvey and stands right in front of him, putting her face close to his. ‘I need to talk to you.’
He flinches slightly, taking a step back from her.
She pushes a finger into his chest. ‘Now listen, pal. I’ve gone along with this charade. All. Fucking. Day.’ She jabs his chest to punctuate each word. ‘I’ve gone along with it, because I was promised something in return. I was promised—’ Her sentence stops abruptly as she screams, grabbing her ear. ‘Oww!’ The tracker vibrates hard, giving her a sharp shock. ‘What . . .’
‘You were told not to talk about the conditions of your agreement,’ Harvey says, smoothing a hand down the front of his shirt to remove the dents from Lucy’s probing finger. ‘You were warned.’
‘This is insane!’ Tiggy shouts, stepping away from James as she grabs hold of Lucy’s arm and glares at Harvey. ‘Stop this. Stop this now.’
‘It’s OK,’ Lucy says, her voice faint. ‘It’s stopped.’ The sharp pain has subsided, but there is still a dull ache, and she rubs the skin behind her ear as she addresses Harvey. ‘I get it. No talking about our agreements . . .’ She’s fuming, but she tries to rein it in.
Finally, Amelia stirs – blinking, as if she’s just zoned back in from a trance. ‘I . . . I . . .’ She shakes her head, trying to wake herself up. She turns to Harvey. ‘Please. Can we talk to the host now? Everything’s got out of hand. We need to keep calm and work out how to deal with all this—’
‘Keep calm?’ Lucy is fizzing with rage now – Amelia’s stoic attitude has lit her fuse. How is anyone supposed to be calm when they’ve just found out that two of their party are dead? She balls her hands into fists. ‘You, Amelia. This all seems a bit too easy for you. Remind us again why we haven’t been privy to your big secret?’
‘Something to do with my tracker . . . you already know this.’ Her eyes flick away. ‘There’s no big conspiracy.’
Lucy pokes her in the chest and Amelia takes a step back. ‘No big conspiracy? Why would you even say that? Are you in on this? Is this all your doing?’
Amelia locks her arms over her chest to shield herself from another jab. ‘No. Of course not. Why are you saying that?’
‘She does know something,’ Tiggy sniffs, nodding towards James. ‘I heard him asking her.’
Scott stops pacing. ‘Asking her what?’
Now all of them are staring at Amelia.
‘About her friend,’ Tiggy says. ‘Something to do with her friend.’
Amelia shakes her head, inching further away. ‘No.’ Her lower back hits the table and she stops.
Lucy advances on her. ‘What friend, Amelia? Who is your friend? What’s your friend done to Brenda and Giles?’
‘No.’ Amelia tries to take a step away from the table, but Lucy shoves her back. ‘This has nothing to do with me.’
Lucy laughs. ‘Nice try. Not buying it.’ She shoves her again. ‘Oh, you don’t like the shoving? You seem to have no trouble shoving us when it suits you.’
Scott is beside her now, and he gives her a little shove too. ‘Care to enlighten us, Amelia? Because I’d sure as hell like to know what in God’s name is going on here. Right now, I would like to get on that plane, fly back to where we came from, then get home to my goddamn normal life.’ He shoves her again, bouncing her against the table. ‘But it seems like you’re stopping that from happening.’
Though Lucy had been doing it herself, seeing Scott pushing Amelia snaps her awake. When did they become a pack of animals? She puts a hand on Scott’s shoulder, gently tugging him back.
Silent tears are sliding down Amelia’s cheeks. ‘Please,’ she begs.
‘Leave her alone.’ James has stepped to Amelia’s side and put an arm around her. He’s pulling her away from them. ‘None of this is her fault. I promise you that. If you want someone to blame, I—’
The familiar beep sounds, signalling that something is going to be projected. They all turn around in the direction of the sound. They’re not bothering to broadcast it through their trackers anymore. This house is clearly full of potential projection points. The image de-pixelates quickly, and a man’s grinning face fills the space. ‘Oh, but it really is Amelia’s fault,’ he says in a deep, accentless voice.
‘Who are you?’ Lucy demands. ‘I assume this is live now. You can see us. You can hear us.’
The man chuckles, then the image pixelates again. When it comes back into focus, it’s a different man – the first one had dark hair and glasses, but he’s blond this time, no glasses. ‘I’ve been watching and listening to you all day, my dear. My goodness, you are tedious.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ Scott walks closer to the image. ‘Oh, hang on . . . I get it. There’s no mysterious “host”, is there? It’s a conglomeration. Of course no one person could be responsible for all the things you’ve claimed. Am I right?’
The image scrambles and unscrambles again, and this time it’s a young woman. Her hair is in a neat ponytail and she’s grinning with huge, too-white teeth. She laughs. ‘Nearly, Scott. You’re not as dumb as you look.’ Higher pitched, but the same accentless voice.
The image flickers, and then another face appears. A younger man, bald, with thick-framed glasses. ‘I’m going to stick with this one for the rest of the presentation,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to confuse you all any further.’ He grins, and his teeth glow bright – same teeth as the girl, Lucy realises. She looks closely at his eyes. Yes. Those too.
‘You’re just superimposing faces,’ she says, trying to sound unimpressed when actually she is.
‘Oh, just superimposing faces? Come on, now. Credit where credit’s due: this is some impressively deep faking.’ The teeth glow. ‘I ought to know,’ he says. ‘I pioneered the technology.’
‘Oh, whatever,’ Lucy says. ‘I’m getting bored now. Get to the point and then we can all go home.’
The man on-screen laughs. The sound of his laughter is still going when his face vanishes. Then a new visual appears in front of them.
It’s someone leaning over a toilet, emptying things from his pockets into the bowl, yanking on the flush over and over, but the tank isn’t refilling as quickly as he needs it to. There’s a banging on the cubicle door.